Yemen is living in ‘exceptional situations whose reasons are the coup and war waged by the terrorist Houthi militia trained and funded by the Iranian regime’
A Yemeni official on Monday accused Iran of sending “gifts of death” to his war-torn country as the two sides cowshed publicly at a UN summit for poor nations.
Othman Majal, a member of the Yemeni presidential council, harangued Iran – which backs Yemen’s Houthi rebels – during his speech at the United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries meeting in Qatar, drawing a terse response from Iranian Vice President Mohsen Mansouri.
Yemen is living in “exceptional situations whose reasons are not a scarcity of resources,” Majali urged, “(but rather) the coup and the war waged by the terrorist Houthi militia against the Yemeni people, the militias that were trained and funded by the Iranian regime.”
The Houthi movement took control of Yemen’s capital in 2014, prompting an intervention by Saudi-led forces the following year that triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
He also condemned “terrorist and racist movements created by Iran in the Arab countries to spread chaos and control the region,” as well as “Iran’s continued sabotage of practices in Yemen,” AFP reported.
When it was Mansouri’s turn to address the anti-poverty summit – during which the Yemeni delegation left the conference hall – he hit back at Majali’s comments, calling them “unreal, baseless, and irresponsible.”
“His attempt to divert the focus from the agenda of the meeting is regrettable,” Mansouri continued. “For the dear people of Yemen, I sincerely wish for peace and tranquility, progress, and exit from crises caused by foreign interference and aggression.”
Iran says it provides political support to the Houthis – who adhere to an obscure branch of Shiite Islam – but denies helping them militarily. Last week, the British Navy said it intercepted a small boat carrying Iranian weapons on a known smuggling route to Yemen, although Tehran dismissed the statement as “fake news.”
